Performance: Business Goals Review

Performance: Business Goals Review

Cowboys live for performance!

Are your goals outdated, delusional, or relevant?
Do your goals aligned with what is required to succeed?
Are you Business Goals simplified?

Performance assessments are necessary in each aspect of a business. Is your business performing at the levels required to succeed? If not, perhaps your current goals aren’t in alignment with what needs to be measured to assure your business is moving in the right direction.

Performance Review: Do you have outdated, delusional, or relevant goals?

Most Business Goals, even when they were activated, are appropriate at a particular point and time. Review yours now. Are circumstances different now? Are your Business Goals, which dictate and guide performance, outdated? Sometimes, when circumstances change, we forget to change our goals that actually support success. Even though this is a common occurrence it doesn’t make it a best practice.

As you review your goals, do they address what is most important for you to achieve the bottom line you seek on December 31st? Are your Business Goals realistic? OR have your Business Goals become delusional? Delusional goals occur when we are in denial of reality. Your SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) Analysis reveals situations which have altered your marketplace (external environment) and your business (internal environment). Are you working from an old game plan and still hoping for different results while experiencing new weaknesses and threats? This swiftly diminishes performance.

Often, I see a business’s goals still reflecting the old wishes of the Business Leaders. The Business Leaders haven’t taken the time to address new circumstances and adjust the goals accordingly. This often leads to Delusional Business Goals and mis-performance. It is always tied to inadequate performance. I ask, “Are you, as a Business Leader, setting up your team to perform optimally or are you inadvertently helping them fail?”

Clear Business Goals Improve Performance

Business Goals help guide the actions of employees through creating department goals to support the Business Goals. When department goals are determined, individual performance goals are developed to support the departmental and organizational goals. If the Business’s Goals are misaligned, so are most of the performance metrics. Unknowingly, many are performing as mavericks instead of working to fulfill the Business’s Goal! Simply stated, when Business Goals are relevant, performance occurs in a cohesive manner to support success as best as possible.

Simplified Business Goals Improves Performance

Business’s greatest asset is the human asset. People are what drives a business to help it achieve it’s goals. The performance of your human talent creates your greatest competitive advantage in your marketplace. Funny thing about people… they like things simplified. It is much easier to tell someone that “everything you do must support X” and have them accomplish it then it is to give long and complicated equations of goals to fulfill. Even though we are complex creatures, the more something can be simplified (uncomplexified), the more likely we are to accomplish it. With simplistic Business Goals, your performance, and your teams performance can improve.

There is quite a bit of controversy regarding the effectiveness of SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Sensitive) Goals. I’d like to add perhaps the most important aspect of good goals; good goals are understandable to all parties involved. Review your business’s goals. Are they simplistic enough that everyone, regardless of their position, can understand? If not, you might want to consider rewriting them as SMART Goals. NOTE: There is a particular technique to creating SMART Goals. Don’t worry if you are unfamiliar. Just make sure you address the components of the acronym to the best of your ability.

Several weeks ago we started this series for you to review your business’s performance. So far we have started looking very closely at how diversified your business is, or isn’t. We also reviewed what is your business’s vision. Then we looked at how your Business’s Mission Statement and Job Descriptions support your success. Last week we discussed how to create an effective job description for everyone, including yourself! Play with this. It’s important to do this, but it requires you to ponder some of this too! It is a practical goal to have this all in place by the beginning of Q4 and end the year with clarity. This will make setting Business Goals to optimize performance in 2015 a breeze!

Maggie’s curious: Have your Goals been outdated, delusional, or relevant? Sometimes mine are delusional – I simply forget I’m human 🙂 Please feel free to share in the comment section so we can learn from each other!

THANKS FOR ALLOWING ME TO HELP YOU IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS!

If you or your business needs rescuing on this particular topic or any other Business Strategies we have been discussing, please reach out to Maggie (262) 716.7750, Central Time, for YOUR No-cost Consultation

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